PUBLIC LIVES

PUBLIC LIVES; Public Defender of a High-Profile Private Life

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: September 3, 1998

I'M worried about myself,'' said Lanny Davis, the ubiquitous former White House aide who may well defend Bill Clinton until the last independent counsel dies. Normally you can find Mr. Davis in Washington -- or in an NBC studio, actually, where he spent more than 17 straight hours as a pro-Clinton talking head on the day of the President's Monica Lewinsky speech. But on Tuesday Mr. Davis got off the air long enough for coffee at the Royalton Hotel on West 44th Street, before he hurried over to Simon & Schuster to work out a book contract about his years in the First Bunker.

''It's going to be 10 rules on how to make bad news better,'' said Mr. Davis, whose tenure in the White House might not immediately suggest that he is an expert on this subject.

But Mr. Davis is happy to explain. ''I'm going to reflect on my own mistakes,'' he said, genially, ''in a White House that failed to resist the impulse to hold things back.''

Mr. Davis, 52, has returned to a partnership at Patton Boggs, the powerful Washington lobbying law firm, where he earned $700,000 in 1996. His book contract with the Free Press, a Simon & Schuster imprint, is in the low six figures. He and his second wife, Carolyn Atwell, have a 5-month-old baby. His life is good. Nonetheless Mr. Davis said he is concerned about his well-being because ''I have pushed myself mentally and physically to a point where I think it was beyond healthy.''

Consider, for example, Mr. Davis's doings on Aug. 17, the day of the President's speech, which Mr. Davis describes as ''the culminating point of a schedule where I had been doing shows virtually every night and weekend for four or five months.''

7 A.M.: The ''Today'' show.

9 A.M., 11 A.M., noon, 1 P.M., 3 P.M., 5 P.M.: MSNBC.

7:30 P.M.: CNBC's ''Rivera Live.''

8 P.M.: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

9 P.M.: ''Rivera Live'' again.

After 10 P.M.: Tom Brokaw on NBC.

11 P.M.: Mr. Olbermann again. ''I was on NPR while I was sitting on the set waiting,'' Mr. Davis said.

(Time Magazine logged 81 appearances by Mr. Davis on network and cable programs since January -- more than any other television pundit.)

Depending on one's point of view, Mr. Davis is either an appalling publicity hound or an admirable Clinton loyalist at a time when their numbers are shrinking. There are two central questions about his life: Does he not feel betrayed by a President who lied to his staff and sent them out to cover for him for months? And why, if Mr. Davis left the White House in January, is he still in the game?

Mr. Davis has been answering the first question since Aug. 17. ''I don't feel betrayed,'' he said. He says Mr. Clinton never directly told him that he was innocent, as he did his Cabinet, other associates and the nation. On Aug. 21, Mr. Davis said, Mr. Clinton called to thank him. ''We had a private conversation about everything,'' Mr. Davis said. ''He recognized what he had done was wrong. What he said to me was sufficient, and I forgave him.''

The answer to the second question, Mr. Davis said, is not a love of seeing himself on television. ''If it's such self-aggrandizement, how come nobody is doing it besides me?'' Mr. Davis said. ''It's what I believe in.''

Mr. Davis has known the Clintons since he befriended Hillary Rodham at Yale Law School. (''I was the married guy who a lot of the women confided in about their male problems -- I was safe.'') He saw Mr. Clinton as the only Democrat in 1992 who could win the Presidency when the Republican Party was gravitating toward the Christian right. ''The issues of the Christian right scare the daylights out of a lot of people, including me,'' said Mr. Davis, who is Jewish.

Mr. Davis grew up in a liberal Democratic household in Jersey City, with a father -- a dentist -- who taught him to read Murray Kempton in Dorothy Schiff's New York Post. After Yale, Mr. Davis ran twice for Congress from Montgomery County in Maryland and lost, then briefly sold Amway products. ''My first wife was active in it,'' he said.

TODAY he remains a shameless salesman with an endearing streak. Over his coffee, Mr. Davis lobbied heavily for mention of The Pawprint Post, a small Maryland publication he supports that runs pictures of homeless cats and dogs in hope of their adoption. Mr. Davis -- who said he had taken no money for his television appearances -- said he directed MSNBC to send the $2,500 fee for Aug. 17 to The Pawprint Post. At home in Potomac, Md., he and his wife have seven cats and two dogs. ''When the lady from the shelter shows up on my doorstep and says, 'If you don't take this kitten, we will have to put her down,' what would you do?'' he said.

Mr. Davis arrived at the White House in December 1996 as special counsel to handle the press during the Senate investigation into campaign fund-raising. He made $100,000 a year, and is straightforward about why he left: because he thought the scandals were over (he laughs), to spend time with his new baby, and to stanch the flow from his savings account. ''We could have sold our house, but we didn't want to do that,'' he said.

Mr. Davis said that he was now determined to cut back on his life as a talking head, but that he had no regrets, even if his partners at Patton Boggs ask ''all the time'' about his reasons. ''They want to know if I'm sane or not,'' he said. ''I get a lot of calls from people saying, 'Are you all right?' ''

Photo: Lanny Davis is no longer a White House special counsel, but is still at work. (Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)